How cynical electioneering backfired and gave women a voice

As Mary Lee and Rose Birks neared victory for women’s voting rights, a male MP pulled a dramatic move that backfired badly.

A studio portrait of suffragist Mary Lee in 1880. Picture: State Library of South Australia

It may have been one of the biggest political miscalculations in history, but in 1894 South Australia led the world by giving women the right to stand for parliament as well as the vote.

The unexpected victory followed a long fight by women’s suffrage campaigners, including Mary Lee, Rose Birks, and Rose’s young stepdaughter, Nellie.

Their inspirational story is told in a new episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters:

Melbourne author and illustrator Mark Wilson’s new children’s picture book Votes for Women! revisits a time when women were subordinate to men and had few rights.

“Not only did they not have the right to vote, they didn’t own anything until the matrimonial act in 1858,” Wilson says.

“Their father owned everything, and when they got married their husband owned everything. In fact, they were actually owned by their father or husband.”

Mary, Rose and Nellie rallied support and helped gather 11,600 signatures on a Bill calling for South Australian women to have the right to vote.

Meanwhile, a petition opposing the Bill argued “the duties and life of men and women are divinely ordered to be different both in the State and in the home”.

One of the fiercest campaigners against women’s suffrage was politician Ebenezer Ward, who cited the Book of Genesis in his speech to parliament.

South Australian MP Ebenezer Ward.

Rose Birks spearheaded the campaign that won women the right to vote.

Ward hatched a plan to block the Bill by adding a contentious clause that would allow women to also run for parliament, an idea that not even the Women’s Suffrage League was calling for.

Ward believed no one would support the right for women to become MPs, but the political manoeuvre backfired dramatically.

“This bunch of politicians thought this would stymie the vote and the whole thing would collapse and be rejected,” Wilson says. “And instead it got through.

“All of a sudden women had the vote and the right to sit for parliament.

“Some have called it the greatest political mistake in Australian history.”

Votes for Women! by Mark Wilson.

The victory came a year after New Zealand became the first country in the world to allow women to vote.

“Only New Zealand beat them to it in the entire world, and New Zealand didn’t have the right for women to sit for parliament, so that part of the bill was the first in the entire world, which is pretty special,” Wilson says.

In 1902, the commonwealth parliament gave women over 21 the right to vote.

Victoria was the last state to give women the right to vote, in 1908.

Wilson hopes his latest book will inspire children to make a positive difference in the world.

“We all have that power to do things,” he says.

“And Nellie was just a young person who said, ‘yeah, I’m going to help here too, I’m going to do my part and help change history,’ although she probably didn’t realise at the time what she was doing.”

To learn more, listen to the interview with author Mark Wilson in the In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.